On May 10, Spotify removed R. Kelly and XXXTentacion’s music from its editorial and algorithm-based playlists such as RapCaviar, Discover Weekly, and New Music Friday based on its new hate content and hateful conduct policy. According to the company, the decision was made because of each artist’s actions outside of music. In response to questions about its approach to other musicians, Spotify admitted that it is “a complicated process with room for debate” and said decisions would be made on a “case by case basis.”

On the latest episode of Genius' For the Record, Cassius Life VP of Programming Jamilah Lemieux and Genius Executive Editor Insanul Ahmed discussed the ramifications of Spotify’s new policy, debated the “threshold for cancellation,” and examined the role of media in covering artists such as Kelly and XXXTentacion.

Lemieux weighed in with her opinion about the grounds for taking action against an artist. “There needs to be some very rigorous standards around any sort of censorship or banning or removing somebody from a platform or not letting them perform in a particular venue,” she said. “I think that what [Kelly has] been accused of and what he’s been proven to have done is egregious enough that he qualifies.”

“The thing that I really thought that Spotify should have done is actually live up to the title of the hashtag,” Ahmed added. “I thought what really Spotify should have done is add a mute button. You should be able to mute an artist like R. Kelly so that when you are listening to a sexy time playlist, it doesn’t come up. When I listen to RapCaviar, I’m not subject to having to listen to XXX.”

Ahmed followed up by bringing up the complicated conversation around 2Pac, who was convicted of rape in 1995. “I don’t see conviction as the standard for, is this person guilty or not. I don’t see the absence of a conviction as proof of innocence,” Lemieux said. “Though he was convicted, the accusations were centered around, as I recall, an instance where he had a sexual encounter with a woman and, by his own telling, looked the other way when two of his friends went on to continue the encounter without the consent of the woman, right? Which is a disgusting and awful thing to do.”

Moving onto the topic of media’s responsibilities when covering such artists, Lemieux and Ahmed agreed that it’s important to have difficult conversations about allegations. “When we talk about Nas, that we have to approach that differently,” Lemieux said. “We have to, at the very least, hold space for the conversation engaging her allegations. We can’t dismiss them wholesale.”

Meanwhile, Ahmed brought up how Genius' focus on music knowledge shapes the coverage of XXXTentacion. “XXX, a lot of his music raps about ‘Oh, this girl broke my heart,’ and this and that, and it’s like he’s basically trying to make this justification of like, ‘She broke my heart and she dumped me, so I get to beat her,’” Ahmed explained. “Covering that and providing that context of like, ‘Here’s the logic that he’s using in his music, here’s what his music is about, here’s what he’s saying, and here’s the context of that,’ I think that’s the information I want to provide to the audience because the information’s the key in the conversation.”

Check out the full interview with Jamilah Lemieux and Insanul Ahmed in the video above.